The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday accused the Central Election Commission (CEC) of stalling the review of a referendum proposal initiated by KMT Legislator Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) about phasing out coal-fired power plants.
The proposal from Lu, the KMT’s Taichung mayoral candidate, has been in limbo for 78 days, KMT caucus whip Lin Te-fu (林德福) said.
The commission could be conspiring to strike down Lu’s proposal by delaying its review for more than 30 days, the longest amount of time permitted for those leading a referendum drive to submit additional information to clarify the intent of their proposal and hold a hearing, Lin said.
This would prevent a referendum proposal from being seconded by the public, he said.
He accused the commission of applying a double standard, as referendums initiated by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers were approved faster than those initiated by KMT members.
A proposed referendum to solicit opinions on stepping up government efforts to enable the nation’s participation in the WHO, the International Criminal Police Organization and the International Civil Aviation Organization passed a review in 14 days, Lin said.
Another one about creating a special police force tasked with protecting animals was approved within 15 days, he said.
A drive initiated by track and field Olympic medalist Chi Cheng (紀政) — who is “working with the DPP” — that asks people whether they support the national sports team adopting the name “Taiwan” instead of “Chinese Taipei” in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics was passed in 47 days, he said.
However, a referendum proposal initiated by KMT Vice Chairman Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) that would ask whether the government should continue banning food products from Fukushima and four nearby Japanese prefectures that were affected by the 2011 Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant disaster has languished for 76 days, he said.
The commission said that it has not received Lu’s proposal back from the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA), because EPA Deputy Minister Thomas Chan (詹順貴) has not signed off on it.
However, Lu also accused CEC members of asking her “ill-conceived” questions aimed at obstructing her proposal during a hearing, such as how she intended to phase out coal-fired power plants.
The commission should have asked the DPP administration that question instead, as the result of referendums should serve as references for policymaking, Lu said.
The commission later issued a statement saying that it handles all intiatives according to procedures.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching